Across the Universe
by BrooklynRed
Summary: Adam Goodson is happy with his life as a heavy-drinking youth, but after a drunken fall he begins to have visions of something far greater, something far more wonderful. But Neverland has a problem, and Adam may be its only chance of survival.


Howdy, I'd like to welcome you to my latest fanfiction. Hoepfully it'll be a bit more complex and longer than the last one and I;m going to try adn explore a few more issues that I think are raised in the books. This is, however, a mature story and I may move it to M rating later. It does contain alcohol, drugs, sexism and racism (as expressed by some of the characters) and may contain swearing and sex later on. I'm trying to represent a certain culture in this story and I feel its impossible to do so without including such elements, so you have been warned. Aside from that I'd also like to say all right to characters that I don't own are held by Great Olmond Street hospital and it really is a great charity.

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The Sun rose like a time-eclipse photograph, a graceful smear across the sky whose glistening rays battered the endless slates of the suburbs, glancing in hallucinogenic rainbows which illuminated the darkest secrets of the houses, penetrating curtains and circumventing blinds like glistening arrows. Little stirred in the glistening streets, which still echoed with the smell of last night's rain.

Through this mirage stumbled a solitary figure, tottering off the pavements and picking up speed in sudden, delicate bursts. It's almost as though he's hopping on two legs, stopping every few seconds in order to gain his breath back. He is not a handsome figure, his hair cropped short and his nose several inches too big for a face already overburdened through excessive features. His eyes are glazed, glassy almost, yet shot through with a delicious wisdom that for a makes him seem like he knows more than anyone ever has, or will again. They are eyes that can look into the soul of a person and come back carrying nothing more than knowledge. Intelligence glistens from every pore of a body too heavily encumbered with a rucksack and sleeping bag several sizes too large, which seem to be hauling him into the ground and are responsible for his tottering gait.

The figures name is Adam Goodson and he is drunk, though sobriety is approaching around a corner like a bus armed with a large hammer. It had been a heavy night to say the least, events appearing out of sequence in his head and reassembling themselves in new and unfamiliar patterns whenever he stoops to examine them. For the moment he is, however, happy. He has an unfamiliar sense of belonging in these silent streets, amid a thousand beating souls that are completely unaware of his presence, even as he rests upon their cars and jettisons a frantic burden over their walls.

He has a rough purpose and direction, though exact instructions are still assembling themselves in his hotwired brain. If he takes a left here, with a quick glance at a surprisingly illegible road sign, he gets here and then with another right he'll be... a field. Right. He stands for a moment and then plunges on, certain that he is heading in the right direction. After several minutes he performs a complex pillouete and stumbles back the way he came with a certainty that this time he knows where he's going.

Home. That's the ticket. A terraced house amid a hundreds of terraced houses, distinguishable only by a small wooden duck in the bay window. Finally he locates the intended destination and fumbles with a key, before stumbling in and dumping his burdens on the floor. Water. He needs water to avoid something horrible happening later, though he is not certain what. He is in that odd state of drunkenness in which time is not a definite thing and it takes him minutes to get to the tap and yet only seconds to fill the glass, spilling water all over the floor.

With that vital task fulfilled he heads upstairs and climbs into bed, sleep swiftly overtaking him swiftly.

Adam Goodson the Second awoke and wished he hadn't. The sunlight that echoed into his bedroom seemed too bright to be real, reflecting odd colours off the tops of furniture. He was painfully aware of the sound of a strimmer outside, boring a hole in his brain. He slapped at his CD player to drown it out, only to find the waxen sounds of CSS more painful still. How much had he drunk last night?

He lay for a bit longer, lying back on his bed and watching the colours flash round his ceiling, occasionally merging to form one seamless wave of colour before it gradually ended when it encountered the wall, breaking like water against a cliff before flowing back to swirl once more. He had once wondered if others occasionally felt such a world of colour and light, but he understood what happened to those who asked such questions.

He felt the sounds of the music slowly fade as the CD faded out and decided to climb out and slowly wander downstairs where the clatter of plates heralded the arrival of his farther, back from working a night shift. The man looked up as Adam entered the room, giving a nod and then returning to the surprisingly difficult task of omelette-making. "What time did you get back last night?" The man asked, at the same moment as he missed the pepper and shredded his hand.

"About five," Adam replied, amid the sudden sounds of swearing and cursing that came from behind his back. He poured some cereal while a desperate search for towels and plasters raged behind him, Cherrios cascading into the bowl followed by a wave of milk that threatened to rush from the bowl and submerge the table top. He turned and was greeted by his farther tying a plaster to the wound, "Good night at work?"

"Yeah, not bad." Adam moved on into the dining room to eat, shovelling the food in while trying to ignore to beating pains in head. Once done he headed upstairs, hauling on his uniform while trying to remember just what exam he had, Classics, he tried to work out the timing. A glance at the clock told him it was just ten, which gave him two hours to revise before he had to leave to get to school. Easy. He went back to bed.

There are few more depressing sights than a question that reads "'The Persian empire broke up due to a chronic failure of leadership, and through being infested with ethnic minority groups' to what extent do you agree? Use your own knowledge and the sources to answer." Yet now that was in the past and the future was bearing down on him with enormous speed. The last exam was gone. The future was suddenly uncertain, stripped of all those key dates that had anchored it together in a map of certainty and positivity. In such a situation there is only one thing for a man to do.

Which was why they'd ended up in the pub. They'd always ended up in the pub, it was life's natural resolution, a place where life can be resolved in the twinkling of an eye. It didn't matter which pub as long as it served without ID, just as it didn't matter if the beer was a little cloudy as long as it was alcoholic.

There were five of them there, pooled in the corner of the bar reserved where they couldn't be seen from the road, each cradling a pint of golden nectar in their hand. One, a small, freckle-haired boy, eyed the girls who clustered around the table next to them. He winked at one who looked back, before his face fell as she turned away with a laugh.

"Shit." He exclaimed to the world at large, ignoring the conversation going on before him, "I thought I had a chance with that one."

Adam rested one hand on his shoulder, "Mate." He said slowly, "you never have a chance. With any of them. You should know, you've tried often enough." He slummed back to his seat and downed his pint, before lurching off towards the bar in search of another. The others glanced round and sat in silence for a moment.

It is at this point I feel I should introduce them in turn; in the far corner we have Charles, the small mousy haired one we met before. It would be accurate to say that he considers himself as somewhat of a casernova, though so far his only claim in that direction is a single drunken kiss a year or so ago. He wears the continually perplexed expression of the permanently bemused, as though confused by his failure.

If you slide your gaze to your left you'll see another sordid heap of a boy, lay shrivelled in a corner seat, long black hair drawn over one eye. On initial appearance on would expect him to be part of the youth tribes of the day, his clothing stereotypical of a particular group associated with loud guitars and cutting themselves but William Ray was not one of those people. Don't let his casual attitude, or his choice of alco-pop fool you, he is far from the normal, depressive adolescent one would take him to be.

Next we have a rarity of the group, the only girl. She sits there, seemingly comfortable in the presence of the so many males. She glimmers, light seeming to reflect off her in dazzling patterns and colours so as to project a multi-faceted image of the girl. I wish I could tell you what colour her hair was, or find the words to describe her features but I cannot. They seem fixed but also interchangeable, as though appearing different to everyone who looks upon her, yet, despite this otherworldly quality she possesses she seems to fit in here among these misfits and borderline alcoholics. She laughs at their antics and adds a few cutting comments, acting almost as a pliant observer of the scene, rather than one who is truly involved.

Finally we turn to the last in this motley band of misanthropes and misfits. He glowers at those around him, letting them infer what they will from his gaze. Impossible to read. His great head nods slowly, as though rocking to some invisible beat and he smiles softly at nothing before interjecting as the conversation drifts onto football. "Renaldo's crap." He says slowly, "A showboater who does nothing on the big stage, if you watch his running patterns you'll see that he is only eye-catching because he gets the ball in easy to defend positions; which gives him time to his stuff. Besides, he's a bloody Diego at heart isn't he, and he shouldn't even be playing over here." William is widely held to be the intellectual heart of the group and thus his occasional outburst of hatred towards anybody who doesn't conform to a very narrow description of 'English' are tolerated in return for his intellectual presence and the fact he doesn't drink.

Finally Adam returns, tottering slightly with a pair of loaded drinks in his hand. The colour dance in front of his eyes as he attempts to lower the drinks to the suddenly moving table. He achieves his aim with great care, spilling the drinks only slightly as he lowers them down. "This table," He declares, "Has a bump. This table has a bumpy hump and it's tipping the drinks over."

The table hasn't moved, and the others laugh as he attempts to rock it with a psychedelic fingertip before collapsing back into his seat. He grins and watches the banter flow about him, Williams acidic comments slicing into a debate on Megan Fox before the conversation moved on to that eternal favourite; what is ones favourite type of Quark. It was the girl who settled this one, declaring that Charm quarks where superior and she glimmered until they agree to her assertion.

It was bliss for Adam, as he tottered his chair back on just two legs, trying and failing to find the perfect balance where he'd be able to balance in a comfortable reclined position while cradling his pint in his lap. He felt the conversation slip around his head and relaxed backwards, delighting in the way the world seemed to spin around him. Alcohol. Gods way of elevating man to his level, if only for a short while. He'd tried other methods, of course, but only alcohol drew him back again and again.

He felt a gyration from chair and realised that he was falling backwards, ever so slowly. He could see every detail, the way the light panned across the ceiling above him, the translucent attraction of the girl sitting next to him and for a moment he thought he could see further, his gaze reaching out beyond the narrow confines of the pub and the universe to something beyond, somewhere far greater and more wonderful than anything he'd imagined before.

He drifted slowly, yet travelled quicker than he'd ever done before, accelerating through the cosmos as stars and planets slipped by. Seconds, hours later, he noticed he was closing on something; a five pointed isle that sat, surrounded by sea in the middle of space. He floated towards it, examining it slowly with a disembodied eye.

It was an impossible thing, that isle. It just sat there, surrounded by water in the middle of space. It had an odd, two dimensional quality that made you feel as though it would look the same from every angle. He was amazed by the detail, the way that the sea just petered over the edge of the world into the vacuum, seemingly magically replenishing itself and the way he could see the small tendrils of smoke from a camp on its north side.

He continued drifting closer and finally he was amid the trees of the land, drifting downwards towards the jungle floor. He could see a group of boys there, dressed eccentrically in ripped Victorian nightclothes and holding weapons. They crept in formation, as though hunting something invisible, and seemed to be led by a younger, golden child who was dressed in vines and leafs. Adam hovered as they crept out of view, taking a curved route to the north.

They were followed by another group, even more eccentric than the first. A group of pirates, dressed in what one would describe as stereotypical pirate clothing, led by a tall man garbed in a red coat that wouldn't have been out of place in the civil war. "After them," he called, softly "Don't let Pan escape." His men nodded and hefted their weapons, following the boys on their curved route to the north.

Finally, following the pirates came another group, this time a tribe of native Americans; again heavily armed. There chief was carried by two of his men on a low platform and held a great bow in two muscular arms, he pointed to were the pirates had gone and whispered orders in some native, guttural language. His men nodded a hefted there tomahawks and bone weapons, ready for war and they too followed the pirates and a boys to the north.

Some time later the boys remerged from the undergrowth to the north-west and Adam had to stifle a laugh as he realised what was going on; all three groups where evidently tracking each other through the forest in a great circle, fated never to catch each other but instead to track for eternity. He watched for another few circles before he finally began to drift too the ground, the wind pushing his disembodied mind to the jungle floor to face the leader of the boys.

They stopped and eyed him suddenly, there leader approaching the place where Adams mind hovered, "What are you?" He demanded, his voice cocky and unbroken, "And are you here to help?" And then, before Adam could muster a reply, his alcohol soaked mind was snapped back to the pub and he glanced up at the 5 faces staring up at him.

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I hope you enjoyed that chapter, and hopefully it'll be the first of many more. I hope you'll review as it does make the process of writing a) more fun and b) easier as it highlights where I'm slipping and hopefully gives me a few ideas as to where to take the story. Don't be afraid of being critical, I do try to respond to every review but I may take time in doing so. AS for that, I hope you'll enjoy this one and I want to update before the end of the week.

Thanks,

BrooklynRed x


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